The more you pay for a printer, the cheaper it will be to run. We prefer Canon for domestic printers. Epson also make good printers. We’ve had poor experience with the HP Envy machines, but HP OfficeJet and Laser printers are good. Brother make great commercial inkjet and laser printers.
- Inkjet or laser –Laser printers are fast and economic if you’re a business or high-volume user. Inkjet printers are cheaper to run for lower volume printing.
- Ink tanks –Single tank printers make black by mixing all three colours which uses lots of ink and is wasteful if one colour runs out before the others. Twin-tank printers have separate black and colour tanks so are a bit more economic to run. Four, five or six tank printers are much more economic to run. The more colour tanks you have, the better colour depth you’ll get printing photos.
- Some very cheap printers have tanks integrated with a disposable print head, this is good for very low volume printers where the heads often dry-out, but expensive for regular users.
- Integrated scanners allow easy copying. Basic scanners have glass plates for manual scanning. Automatic Document Feeders are good for multi-page documents. Duplex scanning will scan both sides of the page.
- USB printers are connected to your computer by a cable. Network / Wi-Fi printers communicate via your router to give cable-free printing, useful if printing from laptops or tablets.
- Auto duplex printers can print on both sides of a page without manually turning the paper over.
- Check paper capacity, how many pages can the tray hold? Some cheap printers have open-air trays that stick out, these can collect dust which blocks the rollers.
- Check paper type and thickness will suit you. Do you need to print on thick paper or card, transparencies, foil, stickers or photo paper?
- Memory Card Readers on a printer allow you to print photos straight from your camera’s memory card without needing a computer but this gives very little control.
Stock is still really low following the home-schooling rush, but there are a few printers here and there. Mike at Cartridges Direct in Exmouth is always worth a call to support a local business.If you prefer mail-order then Argos is a good choice with a very generous returns policy, and it’s also worth looking at Laptops Direct, PC World, or John Lewis.